Olympic nod caps big week
The announcement Whitehorse’s Dahria Beatty will represent Canada at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics was the icing on the proverbial cake after a very successful week for Yukon skiers at the Olympic and U23/Junior World Championship Trials held Jan. 6 to 11 in Canmore, Alta.
Beatty finished fourth in the free sprint, second in the classic race, third in the free race and 17th in the classic sprint, earning a place in the Olympics.
Nordiq Canada announced the Canadian roster in a press release Jan. 13, naming Beatty, Cendrine Browne, Antoine Cyr, Laura Leclair, Olivier Léveillé, Graham Ritchie and Katherine Stewart-Jones. Both Beatty and Browne have represented Canada at the Olympics previously, while the other five skiers have not.
Youthful exuberance
Beatty, however, was not the only Yukoner to find success in Canmore as a trio of junior skiers also found the podium.
Competing in the junior women’s category, Sonjaa Schmidt finished third in the free sprint, seventh in the classic race, 12th in the free race and won the classic sprint.
In junior men’s competition, Both Sasha Masson and Derek Deuling reached the podium. Masson won the free sprint with Deuling second, Deuling finished fifth in the classic race, Masson finished third in the free race and Deuling sixth, and finally, Deuling placed fifth in the classic sprint while Masson was 20th in the U23 and senior men’s classic sprint.
In addition to Schmidt, Deuling and Masson, a handful of other junior Yukon skiers also turned in strong performances.
In the junior women’s free sprint, Constance Lapointe finished 25th, Maude Molgat finished 34th and Sophia Giangrande finished 39th. Romeo Champagne finished the junior men’s free sprint in 31st.
The classic race also included a number of Yukoners. Graham Nishikawa finished 10th in the senior men’s race, while in the junior women’s race it was Giangrande 18th, Lapointe 28th and Molgat 38th. Nicolas Giangrande also finished second in the U14 boys race.
Nicolas won the U14 boys free race, and in the junior women’s race, Sophia finished 24th, Lapointe finished 28th and Molgat finished 42nd. Champagne finished 16th in the junior men’s category and Jake Draper was 20th. In the senior men’s race, Nishikawa was seventh.
Finally in the classic sprint, Champagne finished 19th in the junior men’s category. In the junior women’s category, Sophia finished ninth, Lapointe finished 12th and Molgat finished 17th.
A full list of results is available here.
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will take place Feb. 4 to 20, 2022, in Beijing, China. Both the Junior and U23 World Ski Championships are scheduled for Feb. 22 to 2022, in Lygna, Norway.
